It’s taken a while to work out. I thought I was forced to repeat orders at my local because my voice was at a frequency undetectable by youth.
When drinking with the Glibertine recently, the real reason emerged.
Each of his, ‘Please may I have a triple Irish and a Cartlon’, left the youthful staff with gobs open, and not because of the frequency and scale of his personal order.
All around, people were barking, ‘VB’ or ‘2 Carltons’. They were rewarded with drinks and smiles. Our polite requests were met with uncomprehending blankness.
Could it have been the Glibertine’s burgundy smoking jacket and beaver pelt slippers?
‘What's wrong with those serfs?’, huffed the Glibertine. ‘Deaf, stupid or both?’
I suggested his attire might have struck them dumb. He scowled.
I wondered if his complex sentence construction and the insertion of the unfamiliar ‘may’ and ‘please’ might be the reason.
Spraying me with Irish mist, the Glibertine roared to life.
‘Good god man, you’re right! I might have been speaking Dzongkha to those babymaids.
May has gone for good. Please has passed away. Manners are dead.
We’ll be overwhelmed by the loathsome uncouth.’
Now he was on a roll and heads were turning.
‘I was in the East Sydney the other day. F*cking crowded.
Trying to get back to the table, I ran into two of those short browed humanoids. Couldn’t get around them.
Would you excuse me, please?, I say.
One monkey man instantly adopted an aggressive stance. The other didn’t bother to look at me, just uttered a venomous, No.
They were so unused to hearing good manners they thought they were being reproached.
Maybe I should have sprinkled a few ‘mates’ around. Aussie blokes are all mates, right, mate?’
The Glibertine sucked hard at his Irish.
‘And what about those f*ckers on Virgin Blue? Every time I board a flight, the babyface at the door says, G’dday, Douglas.
Familiar little oiks. I shake their tiny damp hands and say, I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t know we had been introduced. I’ve forgotten your name.’
We discussed whether we were afflicted with some bourgeois manners hang up.
Unsurprisingly, you might think, we decided it wasn’t our fault.
Manners oil the joints of society. Except in pubs, apparently, manners make the machinery of living run just a little more smoothly.
So, to all you public bar inhabitants, if the Glibertine and I offend you with our politeness, let us know - gently.
Please?
